The New Normal

      Everyone has things that are normal for them. These days normal changes fairly quickly and we try to keep up. The things that are closed change quickly. Every day I get emails, seemingly from every company that has ever gotten my email address, on what they are doing to help their employees and customers navigate our current health crisis. I get a lot of emails from my principal and superintendent on what is going on to try to figure out what to do for the students while the schools are closed. This is part of the (current) new normal. Another big part for me is being a homeschool teacher. 

      I have the absolute best student ever! He works hard and does more work than I imagine was actually expected. Each day he does a small packet of math work. We also take turns reading a book together, do jumping jacks and chores and work on reading comprehension. I have never been as glad to be a para as I am right now! When he struggles I break it down for him and help him through. And he has been doing great!

     It's funny, I seem to only take pictures of him working on math. One of the worksheets he did the other day was cutting out clocks and gluing them on the sheet over the correct times. My scissors seem a bit dangerous for him so when I ordered my coffee from Amazon I also ordered some small kid scissors. A bit of OT is good for him. So I found more cutting and gluing activities and math color by numbers. I also had to order more printer ink, lol! But homeschool is going well. It's not insanely long, but I think it's good for both of us. And it's becoming more normal so I am getting more work out of Travis. 

      Doll work is always part of my normal. And I am still prepping for my live sale, which is March 28th at 2:00 pm EST on my Facebook studio page. I think it was right after the last live sale someone said I should make more food. So I have been working on fair foods. I have this batch all finished, packaged and ready. I still want to make big chocolate chip cookies, french fries, cotton candy and maybe pretzels. I will have to see what I have for time. And I have to see if I can find the want-to to do it. 

      Being silly is also normal for me. So when Ethan (and then several hobby people) said I should make miniature toilet paper, who was I to argue with that? I would like to point out that no actual toilet paper was harmed in the making of this mini TP. I used a total of 2 tissues to make these. I posted a photo on Instagram and my studio Facebook page and a lot of people laughed. Jokes about toilet paper are also part of the new normal. 

     Doll work is also part of my regular normal. And so is struggling to finish certain dolls. I have no idea why (I have some ideas why...) I have such a hard time finishing saddle seat dolls. Maybe it's all the steps it takes to get them done. Maybe it's having to make a hat. I have no idea. But she is done and ready to be added to my sales group. I think I am up to 11 finished dolls but I am not totally positive on that. 

    Playing with makeup is also normal for me. And I have been doing less of that lately. So Monday I played quite a lot. The top and bottom left were previous looks done with the Jeffree Star X Shane Dawson Conspiracy palette. I decided to also do a ton of playing with only this one palette and using only one brush for each look. Because why not? I dove into colors that absolutely terrify me. Like the hot orange, yellow and red. But together they made the gorgeous sunset eye look, and I loved it! Next I played a bit with the pale blue and added the hot yellow over it which turned it into sort of a lime green color. I don't love the blue eyeliner, but I will definitely make lime green eyeshadow again in the future. I could have done a variety of other color combinations, but after taking off my eye makeup 4 times I needed a break! But I had a lot of fun doing this. And it felt really normal. I really need to practice a cut crease. So far I suck at it. But I would like to get better. 

      The new normal looks a bit different each day, but we can all do some of our usual normal things. I'm going to keep making doll things, (hopefully) keep playing with makeup and keep helping Travis learn things. And I am really hoping a lot of you can join me for my live sale on the 28th. Even though I won't be able to see anyone's faces, the interaction is a lot of fun!